Brecon Jazz is an iconic public festival and annual celebration of jazz. It is set in the concert spaces and streets of the town of Brecon, Mid Wales, UK, and surrounded by the beautiful Brecon Beacons National Park.
The Festival has seen some of the biggest names in jazz history coming to perform, but is also host to a vibrant street and public music scene, free to all.
Since 2016, Brecon Jazz Festival (BJF) has been a community and volunteer-run event, supported by individual donations and small grants from the Town Council and Arts Council of Wales. The funding and budget for Brecon Jazz today is around 10% of what was formerly raised during the more corporate years of the Festival. Despite this, we have managed to bring many wonderful jazz names to the Festival, often involving innovative collaborations. Our approach is also to increase the involvement of leading and emerging women in jazz, diverse musicians and lineups, local musicians, and new generation jazz talents from Wales and beyond.
In some respects, the Festival now is returning to its roots of 1984 when it began, as groups and individuals came together to put on a ‘jazz on a summer’s day’ weekend in the streets and town of Brecon. They had business sponsors, summer weather and early innovator optimism on their side.
Will you help us to raise funds for this amazing festival now in its 36th year, and with an unbroken legacy of an annual celebration of all things jazz? We need to raise money to create a vibrant outdoor music festival with more jazz in the streets and outdoors, linked to the Brecon Jazz concerts, and to document these scenes through film-making and photography, creating lasting publicity and exhibition material in the years to come.
Your donations will provide paid opportunities for many musicians (young/new, established and local) to play, and thus enhance the experience that 'jazz' supporters like yourselves coming to the Festival will have. So from the very beginning of the weekend, and from the 'outside' in town and the streets, to the 'inside' of the concerts and ticketed venues, it will be 'jazz, jazz, jazz' all the way. Your donations of any size will be very welcome - keeping the music live @ Brecon Jazz - this year from Friday 9th to Sunday 11th August 2019!
Special thanks to Brecon Jazz photographers for allowing us to use their images in our Festival promotion and this appeal: Gena Davies for 'Canopies' (1985), 'Street Parade' (2017) and 'Adamant Marching Band' (1984); Dennis Anguige for photograph of jazz vocalist Elaina Hoss (2018). We would also like to thank local artist and supporter Karin Mear for bringing forward the 'Crowdfunding' idea and helping us to set up the page and information here.
With best wishes to all the Brecon Jazz followers and supporters,
from the Brecon Jazz Music Trust & Festival organisers and Volunteer team